Tremulous is an open source team-based first-person shooter with real-time strategy elements. The game features two teams, humans and aliens, each having to build and protect a base. Victory is achieved by the destruction of the enemy base and by eliminating all members of the enemy team.

The gameplay is different than most FPS’s. Most notably, since you can build structures for your team, and also that you can play as an alien. Placing structures is pretty easy, since you just point and click. But most of the time, the maps already have a full amount of buildings, so you can’t place too many. Your team has a power supply, turrets, health regenerators, and other defense items.

One of the wow-factors of Tremulous, is that you can play as an alien. First of all, you can run about 5 times faster than a human, you can walk on walls, and your vision becomes very odd. The screen stretches and pulls as you move your head.

The community is pretty friendly, and since this game has been downloaded over one million times, you will always find at least 50 people online. Even in the middle of the night. The learning curve is low, but I have yet to master the controls like my quick-finger competitors. But if you wish to just watch, you can fly around as a spectator.

The graphics can either be amazing, or low-spec, depending on how you set them. So I did manage to get this running on my Eee PC 700Mhz 192 MB of RAM. But even on low-spec, Tremulous looks terrific. Walking through a futuristic subway station, littered with debris and blood, still gives you a suspenseful feeling.

Overall if your looking for a different FPS to play, or looking to play as an alien for a change, definitely give Tremulous a try. Best of all, it’s FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows friendly.